So let me get this straight: Ferrell says that you shouldn't be eligible for diversion if you bring a gun to school. Will Casey says that when Ferrell takes that position he's lying about the program, but then immediately admits that someone who brings a gun to school is in fact eligible for diversion. In other words, when Will claims Ferrell isn't telling the truth, it's actually Will that isn't telling the truth.

What the hell kind of garbage writing is this?

@4 Thank you for your service. As a resident of Fedway and a long time Jim hater, I appreciate you.

I'm hoping the only good that comes out of Jim's prosecutor run is that more people across FW and the county come to realize what a piece of shit the guy is.

It can’t be emphasized often enough that the purpose of diversionary programs is not to keep persons out of jail generally, but to prevent one stupid (and often youthful) mistake from creating a permanent record which dogs someone for the rest of his life. For example, If a first offense had a student feeling sufficiently threatened to bring a gun to school to protect himself, then he should go through this diversionary program, including an investigation to determine if he was correct in feeling that threatened, and counseling for better responses to feeling so intensely threatened.

The problem with the Stranger’s reporting on this issue comes from both the Stranger in general, and this writer in particular, having drunk the abolitionist Kool-Aid. Sending the same persons through the same diversionary programs multiple times, with no resultant change in the behavior which keeps getting the person arrested, simply wastes a good diversionary program. Even Seattle’s famously liberal voters finally had enough of the de facto abolitionist policy of not ever charging homeless persons with most crimes, and rejected both the undeclared and declared abolitionist candidates for City Attorney. Rather than admit this has happened, the Stranger keeps advocating for diversionary programs and abuses thereof, as an underhanded way of imposing abolition on an electorate which has rejected it at the polls. This merely threatens diversionary programs, without accomplishing the Stranger’s abolitionist goal. It has also robbed the Stranger of the credibility needed to participate in Seattle’s civic dialog on diversionary programs.